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Monthly Archives: January 2017

A couple of years ago we found ourselves traversing a canyon trail that promised to take us to a place called Margaret Falls.

“Found ourselves” sort of makes it sound like we were abducted and dropped off against our will, or perhaps that we slept walked to the falls, which would be quite a feat considering our bed is located over a thousand kilometers away.

Rest assured that we ended up on the trail-about 15 kilometers west of Salmon Arm, BC-quite deliberately, but nothing prepared us for the insane beauty of the place. From the moment we set foot on the paved path until we reached the falls itself, we felt like we had entered a sacred place.

Or perhaps a theme park or movie set.

It was confusing. And breathtaking.

Here are some pictures of the walk through the canyon, but they really don’t do the place justice.

The paved path, with its knee-high boundary fence to remind people not to trample the unique and fragile ecosystem, made it feel surreal. The waterfall fed creek flowed past moss-covered rocks while perfectly placed trees-both alive and those giving themselves back to the forest floor-made it easy to imagine the scene was birthed by Walt Disney rather than Nature…which is kind of tragic when you think about it.

One tree angled itself onto the pathway and had been clamored on by children until its trunk was polished smooth as resin.

On we went, over bridges and through the shady canyon and then…there it was! It was no Niagara, but it was perfectly proportioned and so worth the hike.

Well, the “hike” was a five-minute stroll along a paved path so pretty much anything would be worth it, but still. It was beautiful. There was a cave right in the waterfall. Apparently locals often climb through the falls and inside the cave, though this is highly discouraged and illegal.

I always imagine what tourist attractions were like before they were attractions. Before the necessary rules and the ropes. What it must have been like for the first humans who stumbled across it. During the hot summers this shady oasis would no doubt have been a popular gathering place for indigenous people and later homesteaders. If only the canyon walls could talk.

In a world where things are always changing there is a comfort in a waterfall’s never ceasing flow. I like to think about how the waterfall I am looking at now, is the very same waterfall someone else stood in front of and admired a hundred years ago…or more. It is hard to fathom so much water always falling year after year after year. And of course what a terrible thing it would be if it were to ever stop.

There is so much beauty in our world and I am so grateful for the snippets I have been able to see first hand. Margaret Falls is definitely one of them. It’s a good slice.

At the age of 44, she became the first woman to walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in a single season. A year later, she set off on foot from Pasadena California on New Year’s Day with one destination in mind…Peace. She would never own a car, live in a house, have a bank account or answer to her birth name-Mildred Lisette Norman-again. From that day forward she called herself Peace Pilgrim, or simply Peace. She wore a navy blue tunic with deep pockets that carried everything she owned…a pen, a comb, a toothbrush and a map.

“I own only what I wear and carry. I just walk until given shelter, fast until given food,” she said at the time. “I don’t even ask; it’s given without asking. I tell you, people are good. There’s a spark of good in everybody.”

And that is what I admire most about her. Not her reliance on strangers to support her quest, but her unwavering belief that there was a spark of good in everyone. She hated war because she loved people. All people. It was a love that shone from her and captivated audiences wherever she went. She didn’t care about your political leanings or what you believed in. She simply loved people, believed in peace and walked her talk.

World Peace didn’t happen after she crossed the United States from coast to coast the first time. Or after visiting all ten provinces of Canada. Nor did it happen after crossing the United States for the second, third, fourth, fifth or even sixth time. But she kept walking anyway. She wore the words Peace Pilgrim across her tunic and welcomed conversations about her walk with everyone she met; army officers, university students, politicians…she greeted them all with love and warmth.

There seems to be an innate human tendency to mirror emotion. We match hate with hate until we simply became opposite sides of the very same coin. I once heard a talk by Pema Chodron-a Buddhist monk-where she illustrated this concept with a joke about activists clobbering opponents over the head with their peace signs.

“You can laugh,” she said. “But it isn’t that far off the mark.”

Peace Pilgrim didn’t clobber people over the head with her beliefs; like Pema, she too believed in the exact opposite approach. The following are just a few Peace Pilgrim quotes.

“There is no greater block to world peace or inner peace than fear. What we fear we tend to develop an unreasoning hatred for, so we come to hate and fear. This not only injures us psychologically and aggravates world tension, but through such negative concentration we tend to attract the things we fear. If we fear nothing and radiate love, we can expect good things to come. How much this world needs the message and example of love and of faith!”

“No one walks so safely as one who walks humbly and harmlessly with great love and great faith. For such a person gets through to the good in others (and there is good in everyone), and therefore cannot be harmed. This works between individuals, it works between groups and it would work between nations if nations had the courage to try it.”

“In order to help usher in the golden age we must see the good in people. We must know it is there, no matter how deeply it may be buried. Yes, apathy is there and selfishness is there – but good is there also. It is not through judgment that the good can be reached, but through love and faith.”

“The positive approach inspires; the negative approach makes anger. When you make people angry, they act in accordance with their baser instincts, often violently and irrationally. When you inspire people, they act in accordance with their higher instincts, sensibly and rationally. Also, anger is transient, whereas inspiration sometimes has a life-long effect.”

On July 7, 1981, while being driven to a speaking engagement near Knox, Indiana, Peace Pilgrim was killed in a car accident. She was 73 years old, had been walking for peace for 28 years and was undertaking her seventh trip across America.

Given everything that is going on in the world today, one could make the case that her quest was all for nothing. I subscribe to the last line in the last quote listed above…inspiration has a life-long effect.

Almost four decades since her death, I am still inspired by Peace and I still turn to the book compiled by her friends after her death Peace Pilgrim; her life and work in her own words whenever I get discouraged, feel hateful, lose my temper or need a reboot.

Peace Pilgrim inspired me and she will have an effect on the way I think and live for the rest of my life and I know I’m not the only one.

A booklet titled Steps to Inner Peace taken from a radio talk Peace gave in 1964 was published during her lifetime and given out freely. She was adamant that people should not have to pay money to hear or read her message.

Her friends knew she would feel the same about the book they put together the year after her death, so they decided to give copies out for free for as long as they could afford to print them and when they ran out of money that would be that. Well, donations poured in and 35 years later it is still being given out for free. Her message continues to be both timeless, timely and inspiring.

I know Peace would wish for a world where her message wasn’t needed; where we all walked humbly and harmlessly with great love. But in the meantime-if you haven’t heard of her and if you’re interested-hers is a voice of sanity when it feels as if the world has gone mad.